Local News

Commissioner Jim Henry of the Tennessee Department of Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities and his lead team of administrators will hold a meet-and-greet session with community providers from across East Tennessee at the Michael Dunn Center in Kingston on Tuesday.

The session is sponsored by Tennessee Community Organizations, a statewide association of mental health providers that treats people with disabilities.

Rockwood’s Fran Scandlyn Henley and Kay Lamb have been blending painting and friendship for more than 50 years.

“She and I are best friends,” Henley said. “And we painted together all these years, since the early ’50s. And we have never, never been mad at each other. Now that’s pretty good.”

Something else that’s pretty good is their artwork. The two, along with Henley’s niece, Anne Powers, are helping raise funds for Rockwood Christian Church by selling notecards that feature their works.

Organizers for Operation REACH said they are far from making their fundraising goal, but they are still optimistic it can be achieved with three weeks to go.

“The community of Roane County has always come through for us,” REACH president Jane Ollis said. “This year, they might be just a little bit slow or not thinking REACH is here on us right now. Sometimes it creeps up on us faster than we think.”

REACH, an acronym for Roane Enriches Another Child’s Holiday, is in its 36th year.

It wasn’t until recently that she sang for a crowd at Thompson Bolling Arena in Knoxville, however.

Griffith, who performs with the Roane County Choral Society and the Knoxville Opera Company, sang The Star-Spangled Banner on Nov. 8, when the University of Tennessee’s Lady Vols soundly defeated Union University in exhibition play.

We were pleased to see Damon Lawrence’s front page article in Monday’s issue of the News entitled “Enforcing ID law to be a matter of trust at the polls.”

This article arose from that abominable act of the legislature requiring government issued photo identification documents in order to exercise that most fundamental of Americans’ birthrights, the right to vote.